Bike trouble and a new folder

UPDATE! THEY CAN FIX MY BIKE FRIDAY!! I NEED TO GET THAT THING IN THE MAIL!

Many, many years ago my husband purchases a custom folding bike from Bike Friday to take with us on our adventures across the globe. I had a very cheap folder at the time, which is long gone, but the Bike Friday was a CHAMP – barely any bike trouble the entire time he owned it! He wrote a lengthy post about the two dissimilar bikes on his site and you can see the difference immediately. Well, that glorious folder might be toast.

In the middle of reassembling the Bike Friday, bike trouble hits and Hubs discovers something wrong with the frame. There was a crack we probably should have noticed while disassembling for travel, but didn’t find until reassembly. After my original folder died, husband eyeballed the Bromptons for a long time and finally bought one. I got the Bike Friday as a hand me down and have been riding it since.

bike trouble - a crack in the frame

A cracked frame is dangerous and not safe to ride. Instead of spending 3 weeks with no bike, we made our way to a Brompton store in Tokyo. The people at the store were lovely to work with. The staff spoke English & bicycle so we made the purchase of a bike and accessories with no problems. I walked in thinking to buy a matte black with silver bike but no, I immediately fell in love with the purple glitter lacquer special edition. Meet Blurple:

After I already bought the bike, we discovered that Tokyo Hands had the same bike for a couple hundred dollars less. oh well, such is life.

It’s taken me months but I finally emailed pictures of the crack to Bike Friday so maybe the Tikit will get fixed and we can bring him on trips with friends.